30th Anniversary TNG Episode Discussion Marathon

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

January 25th, 1988, "Angel One"

[...]

Captain's log, stardate 41636.9. As feared, our examination of the seven year overdue Federation freighter, Odin, disabled by an asteroid collision, revealed no survivors. However, three escape pods were missing, suggesting the possibility of survivors.

Why did it take seven years for Starfleet to get around to looking for survivors?

Space is big, really big.

That said, it's a freighter. Freighters don't push the edges of the frontier all on their own, they should generally be using shipping lanes (even if they are remote) with people at either end. There should have been someone close enough to mount a rescue mission.

[Nate the Great]

February 8th, 1988, "Too Short A Season"

Fiver (by Marc)
Transcript
Memory Alpha

The Episode

Once again we find ourselves with an episode that is starting off with two strikes against it because of the sheer amounts of contrivance and bad Treknology that's being stuffed into it. There's some good character work here, but it still doesn't make the episode redeemable.

KARNAS [on viewscreen]: I am Karnas, governor of Mordan Four. A dissident group of terrorists have taken Federation Ambassador Hawkins and his staff hostage. They will not discuss terms with me. This is a crisis I cannot resolve. The terrorists are demanding a Federation negotiator. I feel there is only one negotiator with the skills to resolve the situation. The lives of the hostages will depend on Starfleet delivering this man to Mordan. Commander Mark Jameson. Admiral Jameson. The terrorists have given you six Earth days to bring him here, or the hostages will die.

So was bringing Jameson here your idea, or their demand? I feel an editor should've taken another pass at this script.

JAMESON: I am not simply an advisor. On any assignment I accompany, Starfleet has designated me Senior Mission Officer. I control the away team and all its actions. Is that understood? Of course, Captain, you command the ship, but the mission is mine. I trust you are in complete agreement.

Starfleet doesn't have to "designate" you that. You're an admiral; you outrank Picard already. I hate visiting dignitaries that feel comfortable throwing their weight around at the start of the mission instead of when it's actually relevant. It doesn't endear the captain or the audience to them.

KARNAS [on viewscreen]: They insist all discussions will take place here on Mordan. They refuse to speak to me, only to a Federation mediator.

One, Jameson is an admiral, not an ambassador. Two, did they demand Jameson and only Jameson or not? More desire for another editor...

ANNE: This ship is magnificent. It even has family quarters. Pity we didn't have them twenty, thirty years ago. We could have been together almost all of your career.

Yes, we get the feeling that this whole "large amount of civilians on starships" thing is a recent phenomenon, and it seems that Anne was never a member of Starfleet, but what about starbases? Aren't families allowed there?

CRUSHER: I found traces of chemical substances in his blood and tissue samples, but none of them are in our pharmacopoeia.

A "pharmacopoeia" is just a book of medications and their side effects. It just seems like an outdated term for the 24th century, "medical library" would do just as well.

CRUSHER: His red cell count is running riot. The cellular structure of his body is radically changing, but we can't make any decisions on that until we know what it's changing to. His DNA is skewed. Don't ask me how, but he even looks younger. And Captain, there are absolutely no traces of Iverson's Disease.

I still wonder about the pseudoscience that's supposed to be doing this, especially from the late '80s perspective.

JAMESON: There are no dissidents, are there? No terrorists. You have the hostages.
KARNAS [on monitor]: And if I have? You're coming to Mordan, Jameson, and you're going to negotiate for their lives. And I'm going to ask a very, very high price.
JAMESON: What if I refuse?
KARNAS [on monitor]: Then the hostages will die.

You have to respect a plot twist like that. It's a shame that we never really got to know Karnas as anything other than a spouter of exposition and bluster...

JAMESON: It wasn't my golden oratory that saved them, Captain. I gave Karnas the weapons he wanted.
PICARD: You did what?
JAMESON: I gave exactly the same weapons to his rivals. My interpretation of the Prime Directive. Let them solve their problems with those arms on an equal basis.
PICARD: And that decision plunged them into forty years of civil war.

Ah, we just covered this in "A Private Little War". It makes a little more sense here, since there's enough industrialization that the locals can reproduce the weapons and hide them from our heroes. Still doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, of course. And we're still in the "call all of Federation law the Prime Directive" era, I see. Wait a second...do the locals have warp drive? A previous mission could've given them a subspace transmitter, so that's no proof.

The Fiver

Captain's Log: We have been ordered to bring Admiral Mark Jameson to Mordan IV to resolve a hostage crisis there. If he is successful, the news will surely discourage our enemies everywhere from taking any more Federation prisoners in the future.

I get that you were going for sarcastic humor, Marc, but if one takes a minute to consider the implications (i.e. validating the "taking hostages means we get whatever we want" fallacy), it gets mighty dark from a real world perspective.

Jameson: Why don't you have an access ramp?
Picard: It's supposed to arrive next Tuesday.

Yikes, do we get a lot of mileage out of the Tuesday gag.

Picard: I'm surprised that Karnas isn't able to handle this hostage situation on his own. He is, after all, the one who unified the planet after forty years of civil war.
Riker: Perhaps he made too many enemies in the process.
Jameson: Quite possible. It's easy to dislike a man whose motto is, "Peace through superior firepower."

Ah, "The Arsenal of Freedom." Perhaps not the best Season One episode, but far from the worst.

Jameson: I'm also benefiting from a trip I made last week to the famous Briar Patch Health Spa.
Picard: I've never heard of it.
Jameson: You will.

I suppose I should snark about how the Briar Patch probably wasn't discovered at this point in time, but a good punchline isn't coming to mind. I'll just bring up how much of a contrarian Trekkie I am by mentioning again that I prefer Insurrection to First Contact.

Crusher: He's putting his life in danger. There's no telling how far back he'll regress towards early youth.
Anne: You're not kidding. When I last saw him, the rascal was jumping up and down on the bed.

Are you going for some sort of record for the most references to other episodes, Marc?

Picard: Trading weapons for hostages is illegal and unethical!
Jameson: So? What's good enough for Oliver North should be good enough for me.

At the time of the Iran-Contra Scandal I was too young to know it was happening. I actually only know the guy existed in the first place because of the connection between him and Colonel West.

Picard: Admiral, I strongly disagree. You've made the Federation look like an arms dealer.
Jameson: I like to think of us as "the arsenal of freedom."

You already made an "Arsenal of Freedom" joke.I'm not sure if the repetition was justified here.

Picard: The policy of supplying weapons to one side in an alien conflict was discredited long ago by the "Tyree's Planet" fiasco.

I'm glad Marc also saw the parallels.

Picard: It really is the Admiral, Karnas. He's using a youth serum he got from the people of Cerebrus II.
Jameson: It was my reward for negotiating the release of some hostages being held there by a radical faction called the Anti-Grup Liberation Foolie.

"Miri" too? Were we supposed to get "Trek episode BINGO cards" at the start of the fiver?

Jameson: Here is the proof of who I am! The scar from the blood-cut that sealed our bargain!
Karnas: This youth drug gave you back the body of an eighteen-year-old, but it wasn't able to heal a tiny little scar?
Jameson: Well, what do you expect from a rejuvenation treatment -- miracles?

You can just hear the bah-dum-chish of the offscreen drummer and the canned laughter, can't you?

Memory Alpha

* The Iran-Contra scandal connection is made obvious.
* The wheelchair cost twenty thousand dollars, but couldn't move like it had to. I hope whoever was responsible for that thing got fired. Even Christopher Pike's wheelchair looked more practical.

Nitpicker's Guide

* "Lonely Among Us" establishes that if the entire senior staff agrees the commanding officer can be removed, and yet this isn't done to deal with Jameson. Perhaps rules for admirals are different.
* Phil questions why Jameson's scar wouldn't be healed. I have my own theories to explain this one, but I'm neither a doctor nor do I play one on TV.

[Nate the Great]

February 15th, 1988, "When the Bough Breaks"

No fiver
Transcript
Memory Alpha

The Episode

Let's get this out of the way first: this is a horrible episode. A good line here and there does not redeem the asinine nature of this plot.

HARRY: I'm not going back. I hate that teacher and I hate calculus.
BERNARD: Everyone needs an understanding of basic calculus, whether they like it or not.
HARRY: Why?

I understand how we're supposed to be smarter in the future and getting more advanced education earlier, but this is ridiculous. Calculus isn't just memorization, it's a framework of methods that's built on earlier education. You can't rush it unless the kid is a prodigy, and Harry is clearly meant to be an ordinary 24th-century kid. And it's not like you couldn't have had the same resolution using algebra instead...oh, wait!

CRUSHER: Captain, they haven't been through decontamination.
PICARD: Our medical doctor is concerned that you didn't go through the regular transporting procedure.

Party game everyone, how many instances in NextGen can you name where mysterious people beam themselves onto the ship and no one insists on decontamination procedures?

RADUE: We must return now to Aldea. Our eyes are very sensitive to bright light.

I get that this is a clue for the radiation sickness reveal later, but delivered in this way it really does seem like a Chekov's Gun to incapacitate them later, doesn't it? It's a shame the writer never thought of it.

TROI: Humans are unusually attached to their offspring.
CRUSHER: Our children are not for sale at any price.

Can you name any races that would be willing to sell their children? I can't even imagine the Ferengi willing to do this (the kids wouldn't be raised with Ferengi values!)...

RIKER: It's the children. That's why we've been brought here. That's what they wanted.

Yeah, Will, they told you that a few scenes ago! Was the editor asleep this week?

CRUSHER: Don't give in to fear. Now, we all knew what the risks were when we signed on, and that's the choice we made.

But your kids didn't make that choice, that's why they're not supposed to be on exploratory vessels!

RADUE: Where have you been Rashella? Zena and Aran are waiting to take Alexandra.
RASHELLA: No.
RADUE: No? I told you that she
RASHELLA: No, Radue. They can't have her. I will never let her go.

One wonders where Rashella learned the maternal instinct from. It makes a great act climax, though.

RIKER: You're certain they'll negotiate?
PICARD: Oh, they'll negotiate, or they'll call it that. They've taken what they want. Now they'll rationalise it by throwing us some sort of bone.
RIKER: And when we don't accept their offer?
PICARD: The minute they believe that we won't accept their compensation for the children, they'll break off the discussion, they'll disappear behind their shield, locking us out and the children in forever. That's why I've got to keep them talking.

Reasonable, but this seems awfully deceitful for Gene's perfect humans.

WESLEY: What does the Custodian do?
DUANA: It frees us from all burden. It takes care of all our needs. It regulates our lives.
WESLEY: Who built it?
DUANA: The Progenitors.
WESLEY: When?
DUANA: Oh, hundreds of centuries ago.

Didn't we already go through all this with Vaal? The problem with these "central computer maintains the status quo has some sort of paradise" plots is that it's not paradise. Either the people eventually learn to want more, or the computer makes them sheep unable to think for themselves.

WESLEY: What's in there? The power source?
DUANA: I don't know. It's forbidden.

Look, with the more primitive societies of TOS you can get away with this sort of programmed "blind spot" (Norman: I am programmed not to respond in this area), but with this much interdependent technology you can't have everyone be a mindless sheep.

PICARD: No. Doctor Crusher is a Staff Officer, Radue. Starfleet Regulation six point five seven requires that at least two Staff Officers are present during any treaty or contract negotiations.
RADUE [on viewscreen]: Very well.
RIKER: Not much on pleasantries, is he?
DATA: I am not aware of Regulation six point five seven.
PICARD: No, Data. Neither am I.
DATA: I see, sir. Oh, I see, sir.

This regulation seems pretty reasonable, I wonder why it wouldn't exist...

PICARD: Before we begin, we want to see the children.
RADUE: No. We're here to negotiate appropriate compensation, not to pander to emotions.

Time to go get the rest of the fleet and bombard this planet until they surrender. These guys are jerks and whatever compassion I may have had for them has evaporated.

DATA: I believe it was a repulsor beam.
PICARD: Position report.
LAFORGE: This is unbelievable, sir. According to my calculations, we're three days from Aldea. At warp nine.

I wouldn't go back to Aldea immediately, I'd call the rest of the fleet etc.

LEDA: Ah. A fish. We used to have them in our oceans. I've never seen one before.

Wait for after the next quote...

Chief Medical Officer's log, stardate 41512.9. I've begun to suspect that whatever is killing the Aldeans is related to a danger faced by Earth in the twenty first century. Can it be that Aldea's ozone layer has been weakened?

Very topical. You can read about the effect of ozone depletion on the ecosystem here. In short, more UV radiation stunts the growth of fish and the plankton they eat. This affects the entire food chain. But no fish means that the entire ecosystem has been destroyed. That just raises further questions!

RADUE: Before we begin, Captain, you must speak with the children. It seems they are on some sort of strike. I don't understand it. You must deal with this, Captain. I'm not very good with children.

Classic buyer's remorse. Maybe they should've stolen a few parenting manuals while they were at it. One wonders if the Custodian could hack the Enterprise computers...

HARRY: Dad, I want to be an artist, but I don't want to take calculus anymore.
BERNARD: You can be anything you want, Harry. Anything. But you still have to take calculus.
HARRY: Okay. Thanks, Dad.

A good lesson. It's a shame more wasn't made out of this. Seriously, why wasn't a family of minor recurring characters in the cast from the start? Have one of them be part of the engineering staff and the other part of the science staff, or whatever. See the kid a couple episodes a season, a few B-plots to make the ship feel like a city in space and not just a giant taxi.

DATA: It worked well, sir. We have successfully reseeded the ozone layer. But for their atmosphere to maintain it's integrity, they can never use the shield.
RIKER: Or be cloaked again.

Destroying an atmosphere in one day is reasonable, but fixing it shouldn't be this easy. Couldn't the captain's log have said that a science vessel will be coming soon to handle this project, as well as the long-term medical treatment of the locals?

Memory Alpha

* "Aldea" is Spanish for "village". Huh? None of these people are Spanish, or even human!
* Kirk's Enterprise was flung a great distance away in "That Which Survives." Toss that onto the pile of TOS episodes that are ripped off poorly this week.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Phil agrees that "Things are only impossible until they're not" is a great line.
* The Aldeans expect to repopulate the planet with seven kids? Too bad all of the children could've been kidnapped, but they were all transplanted to other continents and Wesley's group couldn't contact them in time. The creators never seemed to grasp this concept of "offscreen people never add to the budget or production time, so always use numbers that sound logical".
* Phil points out that the gravitational effects can help locate any cloaked planet.
* There are more kids kidnapped than parents present in the meeting. Therefore all of the kids that were kidnapped are part of single-parent homes. Every. Single. One. Did the budget really not extend to nonspeaking bit parts using already made costumes?
* Doesn't the Federation have orphans for these guys to adopt? Not that I necessarily consider these people fit parents or anything...

[Nate the Great]

February 22nd, 1988, "Home Soil"

Fiver (by Derek)
Transcript
Memory Alpha

The Episode

Let's get this out of the way up front: even after having proof that the microbrain is alive the crew is still uncertain, and then even after having proof that the microbrain is sentient the crew is still uncertain. It gets really annoying really fast. Furthermore even if Data is excluded from the list of nonorganic life forms because he was constructed, at the very least we have the Horta, the Excalbians, and the Crystalline Entity as proof that such things are possible, so the characters should stop acting like such a thing is impossible!

Captain's log, stardate 41463.9. While mapping the Pleiades Cluster, we've been asked by the Federation to visit a group terraforming Velara Three. Communications have been erratic and there is some concern about their welfare.

This seems like a TOS premise, doesn't it? Ships spread much farther apart than usual and all that. And note that Picard said while they map the cluster, not suspend mapping the cluster to go somewhere else. By sheer coincidence the Enterprise happens to be next door to this place exactly when communications become erratic. Talk about narrative convenience....

TROI: I sense deliberate concealment, sir.
PICARD: Of what?
TROI: I don't know, but it's intense.

That "of what" almost sounds like Picard is expecting telepathy, not empathy. Ugh.

BENSON: An android?
TASHA: And third in command of the Enterprise.
BENSEN: Where were you manufactured? Are there others like you?
DATA: Both matters are subjects of protracted discussion.

You'd think all of the scientists in the Federation would know that an android is in Starfleet. There are still science journals in the future, right? These guys can't be so busy that they never have the time to curl up with a good book, even Scotty did that!

LUISA: The first phase involves selecting the planet. That's very important. It must have the right mass and gravity, the correct rate of rotation, and a balanced day and night. The planet must also be without life or the prospect of life developing naturally. The Federation determines if that's so.

Okay, time to bring up the Genesis Experiment. Without protomatter the instant process is impossible, and let's figure that most of the technology is dependent on said protomatter, so most of that research is useless. Even so, they managed to fill an underground cavern with life that was seemingly stable. None of this could be used to fill a planet with life in a timescale less than a lifetime? Do they have to plant all the seeds one by one?

LAFORGE: Data, what's happening?
DATA [OC]: Too much to explain.

"The drill is out of control and firing at me." That hardly seems like "too much to explain." Yikes, I can be pedantic sometimes...

PICARD: None at all, Mister Mandl. Until this is sorted out, I've provided temporary quarters for you and your staff. Perhaps you'd like to make use of them.
MANDL: You're overstepping your authority, Picard. You have no right to interfere.

Yeah, good luck defending that argument in court, Mandl. I'm pretty sure Starfleet has authority where crime scenes are involved.

MANDL: I have a schedule to meet.

Schedule with who? Picard as a representative of Starfleet has put the schedule on hold. If he means that the various terraforming projects that they're working on have interlocking schedules that demand that the schedule be kept if months of work aren't to be undone, then he should've said so.

PICARD: Doctor Crusher is still making her determination. Mister Mandl, you know the Prime Directive.
MANDL: Are you saying that I knowingly defied it?

Here's the thing, "aware of surroundings" does not equal "sentient", and I'm pretty sure that the Prime Directive only applies to sentient life. It's a little too early in the episode to invoke the P.D. if you ask me.

Captain's log, supplemental. The inorganic life form from Velara Three has apparently taken over our Medical Lab.

Apparently? If there's doubt I'd like to see where it's coming from, Captain...

DATA: The Universal Translator is coming on line, sir.
VOICE: Ugly, ugly giants bags of mostly water
PICARD: Bags of mostly water?
DATA: An accurate description of humans, sir. You are over ninety per cent water surrounded by a flexible container.

You mean billions of tiny bags of mostly water, right? To get to the "bag of mostly water" stage you have to be talking about a single cell. Ugh. Furthermore, how would this thing have the concept of beauty if they can't see beyond light vs. shadow?

PICARD: Then what is feeding the damn thing?
LAFORGE: We found traces of cadmium salts. Now, cadmium is a conduit for converting infra-red into electricity.
PICARD: Meaning?
DATA: Meaning the microbrains might be photoelectric.

Okay, they set this point up earlier under a mountain of technobabble. A better Chekov's Gun than you'd expect for the season, but still rather clunky.

PICARD: We mean you no harm. Do you believe me?
VOICE: Yes.
PICARD: Good. It is important that you trust us.
VOICE: Not yet. You are still too arrogant. Too primitive. Come back three centuries. Perhaps then we trust.

The twenty-seventh century? Not that you care, but it seems that the microbrain will trust us when we are capable of creating the Tox Uthat.

The Fiver

Louisa Kim: Hi! I'm in charge of PR for the terraformers; let me give you the tour. Afterwards, you can visit our giftshop.
Riker: Thanks.
Louisa: No problem. (ahem) What is terraforming? Well, put simply, terraforming is life from lifelessness....

So these guys haven't bothered changing the script since the Genesis Project days. Talk about being committed to your work instead of public relations.

Troi: I'm sensing that Nerd 2's in danger!
Riker: I don't hear any screams. Are you actually being useful for once?
Nerd 2: AAAAAH!
Riker: Wow. She was.

Gasp!

Data: Hey, Geordi! Look down this hole!
La Forge: Weird. It's inorganic, but it's doing strange flashy things.
Data: Who would've known there would be such a devil in the dark?

See, Horta!

Picard: Did you know there were lifeforms on the planet?
Nerd 1: At first the sand was just showing circles, but then it started displaying ellipses, parabolas, and the weirdest thing I've ever seen!
Picard: Come on, it couldn't be that weird.
Nerd 1: That was a hyperbole. It showed a hyperbola.
Picard: How eccentric.
Nerd 1: At least 4.5. Maybe higher.

As a math geek I approve.

Riker: Captain, you should look at this picture of the sand.
Picard: (over the comm) Amazing, it's using force lightning!
Riker: Does this mean it has joined the dark side?
Picard: I'm afraid so, Number One.
Riker: Look at all the chaos Mandl brought.

Star Wars and the Mandelbrot Set. Only in fivers. Enjoy some images of Mandelbrot Sets...

Data: I figured it out! They're photoelectric.
Picard: All right. Kill the lights!
Lights: GAK!
Picard: I meant in the lab, stupid.
Data: Sorry.

Another classic fiver gag.

Memory Alpha

* Final episode where Gene was head writer.
* The Horta is also brought up.

Nitpickers Guide

* If the microbrain needs saltwater to interconnect, how can it live in the lab where there is none?
* How can the microbrain start dying immediately upon losing access to light, what about nights on the planet?
* It's impressive that Data can apparently move at the speed of light to dodge laser blasts.

[Nate the Great]

I happened to find the TNG Companion at a library, so let's see if I can catch up in the next few posts.

GR had always insisted that people be at the heart of any Trek yarn, and it was in the arena of human interaction that the differences in TNG would be the most striking. While Kirk's crew was on a five-year mission, the new starship was to be outfitted for an assignment of ten years or longer. Because of that, officers and crew would be allowed to bring their families along.

Here's the thing; if you're going to operate under this "we won't be back in the core of Federation space for a long time, we need to have families on board" theory, you need to follow through with it. And that means you can't have wars where the flagship will be needed to defend Earth. It means you can't be patrolling the Neutral Zone (that's for the short-range military vessels). It means you have to have a captain that can deal with children!

But no, the E-D did not go past Farpoint Station into the great unexplored mass of the galaxy, it piddled about along the fringes of known space. And going back to Earth was not treated like an extremely long trip. So families aren't needed! Unless you're willing to always act like families are on board and structure the episodes around them. And separate the saucer every time battle is anticipated. And so forth.

Probert had also designed a transporter just off the bridge, but GR wanted the characters to have conversations en route to the transporter room, so that idea was dropped.

What conversations couldn't be held on the bridge before walking over to the transporter area? For me, the reason to have a separate transporter room is isolation from whatever's beaming on board. Even so, the five-minute walk is ridiculous. You could've used the same set for all transporter rooms and imply that one is within a minute's walk of the bridge, another is down the hall from Sickbay, etc.

The rest of this post is from the first casting call, December 10th, 1986:

Capt. Julien Picard. A caucasian man in his 50s who is youthful and in prime physical condition. Born in Paris, his gallic accent appears when deep emotions are triggered. He is definitely a "romantic" and believes strongly in concepts like honor and duty. Capt. Picard commands the Enterprise. He should have a mid-Atlantic accent, and a wonderfully rich speaking voice.

Hmmm....okay.

Number One (AKA William Ryker). A 30-35 year old caucasian born in Alaska. He is a pleasant looking man with sex appeal, of medium height, very agile and strong, a natural psychologist. Number One, as he is usually called, is second-in-command of the Enterprise and has a very strong, solid relationship with the Captain.

Fair enough.

Lt. Commander Data. He is an android who has the appearance of a man in his mid '30s. Data should have exotic features and can be anyone of the following racial groups: Asian, American Indian, East Indian, South American Indian or similar racial groups. He is in perfect physical condition and should appear very intelligent.

You'll note that everyone is in perfect physical condition so far. I guess the world was ready for a bald captain, but no one on the Enterprise is fat or sickly. Ugh. I do wonder how having an Asian or Indian actor would've altered the role, especially if the pale makeup was still intended.

Lt. Macha Hernandez. 26 year old woman of unspecified Latin descent who serves as the starship's security chief. She is described as having a new quality of conditioned-body-beauty, a fire in her eyes and muscularly well developed and very female body, but keeping in mind that much of her strength comes from attitude. Macha has an almost obsessive devotion to protecting the ship and its crew and treats Capt. Picard and Number One as if they were saints.

Doesn't Tasha treat all Starfleet officers as though they were saints after they rescued her?

She'll be turned into an Eastern European (one novel specifies Ukrainian and Lithuanian) after Denise Crosby was cast. I suddenly wonder how Roxann Dawson would've done in this role had she been a few years older.

Lt. Deanna Troi. An alien woman who is tall (5'8-6') and slender, about 30 years old and quite beautiful. She serves as the starship's Chief Psychologist. Deanna is probably foreign (anywhere from Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Russian, Icelandic, etc.) with looks and accent to match. She and Number One are romantically involved. Her alien "look" is still to be determined.

We all know how Crosby and Sirtis initially auditioned for the other's role, but we switched. I can't see either of them in the swapped role. At best I could see Riker and Crosby's Troi in a different sort of relationship than Sirtis' Troi.

Leslie Crusher. An appealing 15 year old caucasian girl (need small 18 or almost 18 year old to play 15). Her remarkable mind and photographic memory make it seem not unlikely for her to become, at 15, a Starfleet acting-ensign. Otherwise, she is a normal teenager.

How often did Wesley act like a normal teenager?

Beverly Crusher. Leslie's 35 year old mother. She serves as the chief medical officer on the Enterprise. If it were not for her intelligence, personality, beauty and the fact that she has the natural walk of a striptease queen, Capt. Picard might not have agreed to her request that Leslie observe bridge activities; therefore letter her daughter's intelligence carry events further.

I didn't need the mental image of Beverly strutting across the bridge, thank you Gene. I could've sworn he said he didn't want Beverly and Picard to get together.

Furthermore, if events had proceeded like this the audience would've had even less reason to like Wesley. Couldn't he have been a bit older, a prodigy that graduated from the Academy at nineteen or whatever but still had the heart of a kid?

Lt. Geordi La Forge. A 20-25 year old black man, blind from birth. With the help of a special prosthetic device he wears, his vision far surpasses anything the human eyes can see. Although he is young, he is quite mature and is best friends with Data. Please do not submit any "street" types, as Geordi has perfect diction and might even have a Jamaican accent Should also be able to do comedy well.

Jamaican accent. Ha ha. Sure, mon.

"Although he is young, he is quite mature." Ugh. The phrase "trying to have it both ways" comes to mind. Has the backstory of working with the kids not been thought of yet?

[Nate the Great]

"The question will be raised as to why he [Wesley] was selected for this all-important mission rather than someone older who would have the maturity and experience which he has not, as yet, attained." Justman wrote in a memo to GR way back on November 12. "Because of his youth, Wesley Crusher has not yet had to learn to go with the herd and compromise his thinking just because compromising is easier and more socially acceptable. He has the ability to grow with the job and to devise new approaches and new capabilities for whatever unforeseen events we encounter. In effect he is a one-man "think tank" without preconditioned limitations."

Nice try, crew. Exactly the same thing could be achieved with a slightly older enlisted crewman. Someone like O'Brien who didn't go to years of the Academy but is out here after a few months of training. If it were necessary to have a youth perspective on this mission Starfleet Command would've assigned one.

Coming up with a reason for Wesley's special status that viewers would accept proved difficult for writers and producers alike.

So...hold off on introducing the character until you have a reason that the viewers would accept? There's no reason why he couldn't be bopping around belowdecks with the rest of the civilians. Maybe he hangs around Engineering for an internship for a year as a recurring character.

Roddenberry admitted that this character [Data] sprang from the Questor, a similar android seeking its creator in his weel-recieved yet unsold 1974 TV pilot movie, The Questor Tapes.

So...change Data enough to not be a blatant Questor ripoff? Put in a little more effort?

Worf, the lone Klingon in Starfleet, almost suffered from Gene Roddenberry's insistance that "no old races", that is, alien races that appeared in the original Trek, be featured at first in order to distinguish TNG from its predecessor.

So where did "Heart of Glory" come from? I agree that you can't just have reprises from TOS races, but the idea that anything TOS-related is automatically bad is ludicrous. After all, you're trying to get the TOS fans to watch the show, right? Plus doing a total rehash of a TOS episode for the first episode after the pilot makes it look like either the staff was lying, the staff is incompetent, or the staff thinks the viewers at home are idiots who wouldn't notice.

Then again, I'm of the opinion that the Star Trek creators have been bitten on the butt over and over again by the desire to do something different just to do something different, as opposed to wanting to do something different because doing something different has a lot of potential for good storytelling.

Of course it swings both ways, they wanted to be different with Voyager but the studio wanted TNG Part 2.

We start catching up with the episodes in the next post.

[Nate the Great]

Actually, let's take a sidestep to the casting memo reproduced on this page.

I'll only comment on the actors I'm familiar with.

Mitch Ryan was considered for Picard, and played Kyle Riker later. He's a bit too rough around the edges for the kind of captain Picard was supposed to be. Certainly a fellow captain as a recurring character, and I would've liked to have seen him as Kyle at least once more, perhaps in the aftermath of "The Best of Both Worlds." And married to Pulaski just to mess with Will's mind, of course!

Rosalind Chao as Tasha just seems ludicrous (even if John Ferraro seemed to like her). Maybe she could've played Troi.

Eric Menyuk eventually played The Traveller. I could see him play a different sort of Data, perhaps one built by an alien and having a more generic "become more humanoid" goal rather than strictly human.

Kevin Peter Hall eventually starred as Leyor (one of the bidders for the Bazan wormhole) in "The Price". I don't really remember how he did.

Seeing Tim Russ and Wesley Snipes on Geordi's list is just surreal.

Seeing McFadden using her real first name of Cheryl is a bit unsettling. I'm glad that her schedule evidently cleared up so she could take the role.

[Nate the Great]

March 14th, 1988, "Coming of Age"

Fiver (by Derek)
Transcript
Memory Alpha

The Episode

Let's get this out of the way up front: This whole premise of "only one person from this group can get into the Academy at this time" is ludicrous. Period. It opens plotholes and is clearly just here for cheap drama. Wesley just happened to be here! There doesn't seem to be a reason why all of these candidates have to be in the same place. Whatever the screenwriters intended Mordack was badly written and his acceptance really does look like filling a quota. This. Is. Badly. Written.

T'SHANIK: You do not look as if you meet the age requirements.
WESLEY: Uh, I'll be sixteen next month.
OLIANA: Happy birthday.

Yeah, about that...why is the age requirement so strict? The age of maturity is different for different species, and there will always be outliers like Wesley.

REMMICK: Yes. To the best of your knowledge, has the Captain ever falsified a log?

Why would Riker know? Is it his job to fact-check the logs?

RIKER: If you want to discuss anything about Captain Picard, you bring him in here and ask him face to face.
REMMICK: You are required to answer my questions, Mister Riker, unless you're trying to cover something up!

Is Remmick supposed to sound intimidating? If so, it didn't work.

REMMICK: So, you are saying Captain Picard had no control over this vessel. He handed it over to Kosinski, who took the entire crew to the edge of the universe.
LAFORGE: No, sir. That's not what I'm saying. Now, Kosinski was sent by Starfleet to improve our warp drive system. Captain Picard was ordered to take him aboard.
REMMICK: According to his own logs, his Bridge crew didn't think highly of Mister Kosinski's theories, yet the Captain allowed him to access to the engines anyway.

The captain was ordered to cooperate with Kosinski, and at the time the chief engineer believed that his work could do no harm. Furthermore, Kosinski did not take the crew to the edge of the universe, the Traveller did.

REMMICK: Do you believe the captain is emotionally and psychologically fit for command of this starship? There is nothing in his history or his personality that would suggest mental lapses?
TROI: Nothing.
REMMICK: Not even the Ferengi incident with his old ship, the Stargazer?
TROI: He was being controlled by a mind altering machine, Commander. Without his knowledge.
REMMICK: I would call that a mental lapse.

Remmick was using the term to imply a fault on the part of Picard, not an external influence. If external influences mattered, I don't think any Starfleet captain could hold their job very long.

REMMICK: Captain, you are completely responsible for that boy's life.
PICARD: Mister Remmick, either get out of my way and keep quiet, or I will have you removed from the Bridge.

I hate Remmick. He's acting like one of those smug ambassadors in TOS, but doesn't have the rank to back it up.

REMMICK: Very original, Captain. But how did that child acquire access to a shuttlecraft?
RIKER: Kurland is a highly qualified Enterprise Academy candidate, fully trained in many areas including shuttles.

That didn't answer Remmick's question, Will. Not in the slightest.

CHANG: It's important to know how you candidates deal with other cultures, other species.
MORDOCK: Then it was a test.
CHANG: Yes. Not all tests are announced, or what they appear to be.

I'm reminded of that old urban legend about divinity students being waylaid by a fake beggar on their way to a test, not realizing that the beggar was the test. Ugh.

REMMICK: You're an android, correct?

What an idiot. Of course Data is an android, it's part of the public record. What did this question achieve beyond making him look like an idiot?

REMMICK: Just how did this contaminant get aboard the ship?
WORF: By accident, sir.
REMMICK: Meaning Captain Picard has no standing procedure for this type of situation?

What situation? "Accident" means unpredicted. You can't have a "standing procedure" for everything because you can't predict everything! Remmick should be focusing on things that might have actually been judgment lapses on Picard's part.

REMMICK: You don't like me very much, do you?
WORF: Is it required, sir?

Great response, although a better one is "have you given me a reason to like you?"

REMMICK: I spoke to officer after officer, at length. I pried into the ships log reports. And yet I could find nothing wrong. Except, perhaps, a casual familiarity among the Bridge crew, but mostly that comes from a sense of teamwork, and the feeling of family.

And if that's a crime, I want no part of Starfleet. Even Vulcans have a sense of teamwork. If you don't want that, go join the Borg, you jerk.

PICARD: Mister Crusher? Why aren't you in your dress uniform for Admiral Quinn's farewell dinner?
WESLEY: I didn't think that would be appropriate.
PICARD: Why not?

"Because I'm an Acting Ensign who shouldn't be going to officer's dinners and doesn't even have a real uniform, much less a dress uniform, sir."

PICARD: Wesley, you have to measure your successes and your failures within, not by anything I or anyone else might think. But, if it helps you to know this, I failed the first time. And you may not tell anyone!

Why would he have to? It's in Picard's public record if anyone cared to look it up.

The Fiver

Picard: Good luck on your test, Wesley. I hope you get into the Academy and never have to visit this ship again.
Wesley: Thanks, sir. But I'm sure that even if I get into the Academy, I'll still want at least one episode a season anyway.

I would've thrown in a reference to his contract, but this still works.

Oliana: Hi. You must be Wesley. I've heard a lot about you.
Wesley: Are you a love interest for me this episode?
Oliana: Not after what I've heard about you.
T'Shanik: I'm also not a love interest; you won't get one until next season.
Mordock: And I'm your rival, so forget about any male friendship between us.
Wesley: Sigh.

"It's gonna be one of those days..."

Remmick: Would you say the Captain was irresponsible to let Kosinski into Engineering?
La Forge: No, why would I?
Remmick: Because that incident resulted in Wesley being made an acting ensign.
La Forge: That is a good point.

Yes, it is.

Remmick: So would you call the Captain sane?
Troi: Of course not. His name's Jean-Luc.
Remmick: What about the time he was mind-controlled by the Ferengi?
Troi: His name was still Jean-Luc.

Hehe.

Memory Alpha

* First episode after Hurley took over from Roddenberry as showrunner.
* Remmick meeting with Yar isn't shown, but it must've happened. I wonder what they would've had to say to each other!

TNG Companion

Larry considers Wesley to be much better written this time. Wesley’s sixteenth birthday party was shot but cut for time.

The tale of this first appearance of the shuttlecraft, initially named the Copernicus III by Probert, is another uncanny echo of the original Trek. In both series, the building of a full-scale shuttlecraft was put off for budgetary reasons until writers made the craft and integral part of a story so that it had to be built.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Phil is also confused as to why Wesley didn't get in. In particular he points out that Worf and Data wanted Ishara Yar to apply for the Academy, and she can't possibly know as much about the technology as Wesley.
* If both Quinn and Remmick are being controlled by bluegills, why wouldn't they take the opportunity presented by all of these one-on-one meetings to take control of the senior staff?

[NAHTMMM]

Yeah, I have a hard time seeing Sirtis as Yar too. I'm sure she could have managed it with less showy hair.

I'd forgotten how good that "Coming of Age" fiver is.

So...change Data enough to not be a blatant Questor ripoff? Put in a little more effort?

It's a fine idea that never actually got used, so may as well recycle it.